


paper shield & wooden sword

by persephonie



Series: Ever After High: The End [2]
Category: Ever After High
Genre: Character Study, Coda, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Post-TV Special: Dragon Games (Ever After High)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26465017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephonie/pseuds/persephonie
Summary: As her powers grow stronger, Raven Queen navigates the beginnings of other missing aspects in her destiny.
Relationships: Dexter Charming/Raven Queen
Series: Ever After High: The End [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925164
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	paper shield & wooden sword

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Dragon Games.

Apple White had always told her, _If you know, you know_.

Raven Queen had always shrugged it off, attributed it to another one of those whimsical Royal beliefs that came with having Maid Marian as her teacher. If Raven knew one thing, it’s that villains like her don’t have Prince Charmings, or better halves, or _true heart’s desires_ , as many of the fairytale figures around her like to call it.

She’d learned early on that romance was simply not part of her story, whether she chose to become the next Evil Queen or not. Growing up, her parents’ relationship had always been strained; she’d known their story to be a series of events involving an arranged marriage between two powerful realms, a disappointing first meeting followed by an even more disappointing marriage, and a pretty miserable childhood for Raven. Her mother, who’d had a string of more influential princes wooing her in the past, had always regarded the kind, benevolent Good King as unworthy, and with all the Dark powers she’d garnered over the years, the Good King was just as well to keep his distance.

And that was all Raven needed to know about romance.

So when Dexter Charming—Dexter with his awkward gait, and his dark floppy hair, and his shy, lopsided smile—asked Raven out, the first thing she thought was, _Well, what the hex_. She’d come this far, she’d known her worth, she’d made it clear that she wants to write her own story, and one date wasn’t going to put a stop to her journey of self-discovery. After all, she’s still a teenage girl, she has the same curious wonder that her peers have.

So she accepted.

And the next thing she thought was, _Oh Grimm, I am not prepared for this._

After they’d gotten over the adrenaline rush and the first-date jitters, Raven thought, _This is good_. And that thought would worry her, because there’s still the whole ‘probable future of turning into the Evil Queen’ thing hanging over her head.

It was a lot easier when they were just friends.

There was less to risk, and if what she’d dreaded to happen, happens anyway, then she can learn to shed her friends. She’d forge new friendships with the inhabitants of the Dark Forest. But she’d never prepared for what would happen when someone crosses into the territory of ‘more-than-friends’, when her heart is in it more than she’d ever admit.

There’s still a bit of awkwardness in the newness of their relationship. After their first few dates, Raven and her friends were whooshed into Wonderland (and after her return, he’d picked her up and held her so tightly like both their lives depended on it, exclaiming with deep relief, _Raven! You’re okay!_ and she’d been shocked speechless because _He’s here! He was waiting for me this whole time! He was worried for me! And oh Grimm, he has no idea what I’ve been through_ , and then Apple White and Briar Beauty had given them a most quizzical look that broke them apart).

Then just a few days later, Raven was thrown into yet another life-threatening situation, this time involving her own mother. A lot had to be sacrificed this time, and although they manage to quell the Evil Queen, she’s still left questioning whether her quest to rewrite her story is really worth the effort. After all, she’s _still_ the one with the Dark powers, and she has noticed how easily they can go out of control and hurt someone if she’s angry even the slightest, and there’s so much more she still has to learn about herself.

Truth be told, she’s getting tired fighting the good fight. It takes a lot of energy to keep fighting, and her Dark powers scare even herself, and her mother’s voice still haunts her some nights. _You’re more like me than you realise_. It’s so much easier to give in and let the Dark powers consume her, but each day she keeps fighting anyway.

Dexter is oblivious to all this, but only because Raven keeps it that way. She won’t— _can’t_ —drag him into her mess. He’s too good for her, and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she ever hurt him.

So they carry on at school as usual, as how they had been before. He greets her at her locker every morning, carries her books for her even though she insists on using magic for it (“but that’s what _I’m_ here for, otherwise those Advanced Wooing classes would be for nothing!”), walks her to class, leaves meaningful notes in her locker for her to find during lunch. _That_ sort of thing.

And it’s something Raven quickly gets used to, which worries her even more, because Dexter has become such a comforting presence in her life that she doesn’t know how to prepare herself for their inevitable end.

So instead, she doesn’t let it go any further than that. They say goodbye at the end of the school day and she won’t see him until next morning. They go on group dates, and he offers to take the scenic route back to her dorm to be alone with her, but she says it’s better to stick with the others, and that’s that.

* * *

It’s about three weeks after the Evil Queen fiasco when Dexter pulls a full-blown romantic gesture on her. There’s a huge bouquet of purple cosmoses pinned to her locker with a note that says, _Another year of beauty and courage blooms your way_. Her heart starts pounding and her hand shakes as she pulls the note out from where it had been clumsily shoved through.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Dexter make his way toward her with a smile that warms her whole body right down to her toes, and then immediately she starts worrying about whether she’d forgotten an anniversary or something else important.

“Happy birthday, Raven,” he greets, and her body relaxes. “Sorry to pull all this cheesy stuff on you, but you can guess whose advice I got for it.”

“You remembered,” she says, and the back of her eyelids start to prick. “Oh Dex, these are my favourite flowers, but—it’s the middle of fall, how…?”

“Oh, I have my ways. It’s not just you who’s gotten the hang of the Dark Arts.” He grins at her, and notices her eyes deepening with worry. “Oh, no, don’t worry! I was talking about Faybelle. She helped me with the flowers. The note, though, you have my Charming brother to thank for.”

“You remembered,” Raven says again, and now the tears are _really_ threatening to fall, “thank you, Dex.”

“Raven… of course.” He averts his gaze, and his hand quickly makes its way to the back of his neck, as it always does whenever he’s flustered. When he looks back at her, he notices a tiny trickle of a tear in the corner of her eye. “Raven? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I—I’m just happy.” It’s easier to say that than the truth, which is that she’s worried, _so very worried_ , because he already knows her too well by now, and it’s only a matter of time before the Eventual Day comes, and the universe has to take him away from her.

He smiles and bends down to kiss her, _really_ kiss her—they had kissed before, but only soft pecks on the cheek and the ever cordial kiss on her hand when he picks her up from her dorm, a staple of a future Prince Charming taught in Wooing 101, but never a proper kiss, not like this—and she’s so taken aback that she very nearly keels over, and suddenly feels the rest of the world and its worries melt away. The voice in her head, the one constantly reminding her of her impending doom, is gone. The Dark powers that take control of her body loosen their grasp, and she feels light and airy and free. She can _breathe_.

When they pull away, she has to lean against her locker for support. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Dexter agrees, and his whole face is a brand new shade of scarlet. “Wow.”

* * *

It becomes difficult to keep their relationship from going any further after that.

On the first day back in Home Evilnomics class, Raven gets provoked by Baba Yaga for epically failing to cast one of the more simpler spells.

“How are you ever going to master the spell for the poison apple, hmm? Think about your destiny and follow it,” Baba Yaga tuts. “Surely you’re not channeling deep enough into that Dark power of yours.”

 _That_ had done the trick, and oh boy, to say she channeled her Dark powers enough would be an understatement. The whole class was inadvertently turned into various farm animals, and then Baba Yaga clapped her feathered hands together, exclaiming, “That’s what I’m talking about! You’re doing well on the path of evil.”

Raven decided then to take leave for the rest of the day.

She’s lying in bed, scrolling through her MirrorPhone when she hears a knock on the door of her and Apple’s dorm room. She’d left it unlocked in case Maddie decided to come by after she finished her classes.

“Come in,” she calls, not looking up from her phone.

“Hey, Raven.” The voice makes Raven jump, dropping her phone. It’s Dexter, and his brows are knitted in worry as he pads along into the room, ungainly as ever. “I heard from Apple that you weren’t feeling well, so I wanted to…”

He trails off when he sees Raven sitting up in her bed, looking absolutely… _fine_.

“ _Dex_ ,” she gasps, half-amused, half-ashamed, “what are you doing here?”

“Well, I—I was worried about you.” There’s the hand behind his neck again, and Raven warms at the familiarity of it. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not really sick,” she says, biting her lip sheepishly. “I just had the worst, most hexaustive day. Baba Yaga was getting on my last nerve about my destiny again, and…”

“Oh.”

Raven is scared to look at him, and she feels even more ashamed now that she’s saying it out loud. She doesn’t notice that he’s already sitting down next to her on her bed. He pulls something out of a bag.

“Here, I brought you this.” It’s a bowl of porridge. More specifically, it’s a bowl of her favourite porridge from the Wonderland Haberdashery & Tea Shoppe, the one with pecans and cinnamon that she would always get on a bad day. “To make you feel better.”

“Dex, you didn’t have to,” she begins, her heart swelling with a strange mixture of utter delight and then a deeper guilt, “I’m sorry you had to come all the way here, and I’m not even sick…”

“ _Raven_.” Dexter takes her hand in his, his eyes softening, though there’s a hint of frustration in his voice. “That’s what I’m _here_ for.”

* * *

Raven’s powers get stronger. They become more and more difficult to control, and she gets angry far too often, and she finds herself having to apologise to more people than she has ever had to. She had predicted this, had prepared herself for this, but now it actually means that what’s coming is real. She doesn’t know when, but now that Apple has found her real Prince— _Princess_ —Charming, and Raven’s Dark powers are slowly but surely taking over, all that’s left is for Raven to play her part in the story.

And so she does what she always intended to do: she pushes Dexter away.

She does it gradually. Instead of holding his hand on their walk to class, she touches his elbow lightly; a formality Dexter learned early on in Wooing 101, a gesture to evade intimacy rather than encourage it. She stops seeing him at the end of the school day, just makes a beeline for her dorm and leaves him a cryptic hext, _Sorry! Had to run._

She finally breaks, and goes to C. A. Cupid for advice. Cupid, who’d quickly gotten over Dexter as soon as she’d seen how happy Raven had made him, is more than eager to help her new favourite Ever After High couple, until Raven specifies exactly what advice she’s seeking: breakup advice.

“Talk to _him_ ,” Cupid says, almost spitting out the last word in disgust, “why are you coming to me about this?”

Later in the day, Raven finds a note in her locker.

_Meet me in the gazebo after school—please._

_Yours always,  
Dex_

She almost doesn’t go, but the _please_ makes her a little more than worried, and the _Yours always_ bounces around in every corner her of mind for the rest of the day. As soon as she hears the bell go off, she finds herself racing to the gazebo, her heart beating so fast that she thinks it’s going to leap out of her chest.

He’s laid out a little picnic on the small marmoreal table in the gazebo. She arrives just as he’s arranging a fresh bunch of cosmoses in a jar. She can’t stop herself; as she takes in the sight of him so focused at work, all to make _her_ happy, her heart is so full, and— _why oh why did it have to be so Royally complicated_ —she starts to cry.

“Oh, _Dex_.” Raven’s hands fly to her mouth. “This—this is…”

“My best work yet?” Dexter turns around to grin at her, but upon seeing her cry, rushes to her side. “Raven, what happened? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly, and then she sighs. “Everything.”

“Raven…” Dexter leads her into the gazebo. “Is this about your destiny?”

“What? How’d you know?”

“I talked to Cupid,” he says, and she stiffens. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I’m sorry, Dex—”

“You’re really breaking up with me?” The hurt is so clear in Dexter’s eyes that it completely blindsides Raven. It doesn’t belong there, and now _she’s_ put it there, and she _hates_ herself. More so than when she’d hurt anyone else before. “I care about you, Raven… so much. And I want to be with you. But if I’m getting in the way of your destiny, then—then I won’t anymore. I just really hope you know that.”

“No, that’s not what I…” Raven takes a deep breath. “Dex, I don’t want to hurt you. My powers are getting stronger every day, and I’m starting to lose control. I don’t want to get you hurt because… because I care about you, too. More than you know.”

“I’m not afraid, Raven,” Dexter says, leaning toward her. “I know who you are. I know what you’re capable of. And I’m not afraid.”

“You should be.” She inches away from him. “You should be really afraid of me. Hex, even _I’m_ afraid! I don’t know just how much of this I can handle. Why would you want to risk your life for this? Why do you even _want_ me?”

Her anger had risen with her words, and as she spoke her eyes became clouded with Dark magic, and the flames lit up and glowed dimly around her figure. She notices Dexter stepping back just a little, and she feels something break in her chest. She’s about to run away, ashamed of what she’d done, but he reaches for her before she can.

“Because you’re the most amazing person I know.” Dexter grasps her hand tightly. “You’re smart, and kind, and caring. You’re stubborn,” he lets out a small laugh, “but only because you believe so strongly in the things and the people that you care about. And I think that makes you worth risking my life for. So… I'm not going anywhere.”

Raven meets his eyes, and he’s looking at her so earnestly. “You’re too _good_ for me, Dex.”

“Maybe. But then again…” Dexter trails off, grinning at her teasingly. “You know, Raven, you’ve never asked me about my story.”

“Didn’t you say it involved saving a princess?”

“That’s what I thought at first, until I signed the book on Legacy Day. And it didn’t say anything about a princess at all.”

“What did it say?”

“Well, it was really vague, but all I know is… there’s a Huntsman in my story.”

“A Huntsman?”

“And a Queen.” Dexter sees her eyes widen in surprise. “And if my calculations are correct on this, then we both know the Huntsman role is taken, and so is the Charming role.”

“ _Dex_ ,” Raven whispers, her heartbeat slipping out of rhythm, “what are you saying?”

“I didn’t know for sure, not at first… but now I think there might be a reason I’m _Darling’s_ twin instead of Daring’s.”

“Oh.” She feels a sudden warmth inside. She understands. “ _Oh_.”

“So, we’ll just see what happens.” Dexter pulls her closer to him. “Won’t we?”

Raven nods, smiling up at him. She may not be able escape the end of her destiny, but maybe she can slow it down just a little. And maybe she doesn’t mind at all, really. She can learn to find happiness in the meantime.


End file.
